Brown reopens mining deal

The Australian Greens plan to use their expected balance of power in the Senate to push a re-elected Labor government to raise more revenue from mining companies, undermining Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
’s hopes of stamping out the resources tax as an election issue.

Amid concerns in the mining industry about the Greens’ growing ­influence in federal Parliament, party leader
Bob Brown
says he wants to raise an extra $600 million a year through the resources tax to enable the company tax for small business to be cut to 28 per cent.

While Senator Brown said he could not say what changes to the tax the Greens would propose in order to raise this money, NSW Senate candidate
Lee Rhiannon
said the party would look at issues such as “the level it kicks in".

“We’d be looking at increasing both the amount that’s raised from the mining tax and then also how it’s used and over what period of time," said Ms Rhiannon, who as the Greens’ No. 1 candidate in NSW is likely to win a seat.

Although he has promised the Greens will not use its numbers to block the resources tax, Senator Brown said his party’s grip on the Senate should provide enough leverage to win concessions from the government. He cited the economic stimulus package and workplace relations ­reforms as recent examples of bills the Greens had been able to amend despite agreeing beforehasnd that they would not block the legislation.

“You could argue we don’t [have leverage]," he said. “But I don’t expect a government with a minority in the Senate is going to take a winner-takes-all attitude to the crossbench in the future."

On the basis of Treasury’s initial commodity price forecasts, the government’s backdown on the resources tax cost the budget $1.5 billion over two years, a change that forced it to scale back its cut to the 30 per cent company tax rate to 29 per cent, instead of the 28 per cent proposed.

Senator Brown said the Greens would use their power in the Senate to push for the company tax rate for small business to be restored to 28 per cent. He acknowledged that that would mean amending the resources tax to raise an extra $600 million a year.

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“I don’t see why [small business] should be paying an extra 1 per cent to fund a backdown to the big mining corporations," he said. “After all, 5 million work for small business [but] 200,000 in mining."

Macarthur Coal chairman
Keith de Lacy
said he would be concerned about any changes negotiated with the Greens. “The resources industry has accepted the government’s commitment to the new tax and we wouldn’t see any change to that one," he said.

Emerging miners said that though they would continue to argue for the tax to be scrapped, if the Greens won the balance of power the industry would be subjected to months of damaging uncertainty.

“The Greens have indicated they could increase the revenue from the tax and with the commentary from the government that they are not going to waiver from their current position, that means they are going to hit an impasse when it hits the Senate," Association of Mining and Exploration Companies chief executive ­Simon Bennison said. “What happens then?"